Survivor Micronesia -- Day 36 -- What was Erik Thinking?

Survivor Micronesia: Season 16 was certainly one for the record books. There were more blindsides than any other season, and more people left the game without being voted out whether it was due to medical complications or voluntary leave. The fact of the matter is, Survivor never gets old, and the ratings prove that the next four seasons are going to be spectacular as well.

Thursday night's episode, May 8th, 2008, was an interesting show. Of course Cirie starts off things by being the "controller" of the game. It seems like Cirie is the main power player in every episode, and while all of the women are manipulative, Cirie is the leader in that category. Survivor: Micronesia has had more blindsides than any season in the history of Survivor, but when we all watched the promos, we knew that there would be the BIGGEST blindside ever.

The challenge's weren't all that surprising, and they weren't what made this episode great, but they should still be described in this review. The reward challenge consisted of a bunch of questions from previous seasons, and Erik buried the competition. The reward was pretty nice, and he took Amanda along with him, even though they haven't gotten along all that well, but as she stated: "you've redeemed yourself!" I suppose Erik "thought" everything was alright. Actually knowing him, he did. Both Erik and Amanda circled Micronesia, and then they both received high class spa treatment. I thought it was a bit funny when Erik told Amanda that he had never been to a spa before. After a nice dinner, the reward was over, and they returned to camp.

Parvati is at Exile Island, but that is simply because Amanda talked Erik into sending her there. Natalie is ticked off because Erik promised her to either send her off to Exile so she could find the hidden immunity idol, or that he'd take her with him on the reward challenge if he won, since she would do the same if she won, or so we think. Seeing that this is Survivor, nobody really keeps their word, and of course she was backstabbed in that sense. Seeing that Amanda simply played Erik, Cirie was the mastermind behind it, as she is with just about everyone. Parvati really gets on my nerves since she thinks she has the entire game in her back pocket, but she really doesn't. Parvati only opens her mouth when she really shouldn't. Meanwhile at Exile, Parvari is relaxing under the sun on her towel, and has no intentions of looking for the idol.

During the actual immunity challenge, the contestants had to cross ropes, dig up buried puzzle pieces, and of course solve the puzzle, nothing TOO exciting, except for the fact that Erik ran for his life down the pathway to the puzzle everytime, which I don't understand why he did anyway, which will be explained later in this review. Anyhow, Erik won individual immunity and temporarily screwed up the women's plans to get rid of him. Seeing that Amanda totally worked Erik during the reward challenge, all four of the girls were sitting amongst each other, when all of the sudden Cirie yet again open her mouth and figured out a plan to possibly get Erik to give up his immunity necklace in exchange for jury vote(s). Seeing that Cirie told Natalie to convince Erik, I certainly didn't think this was even remotely possible.

Erik's life depended on that immunity necklace, and he was guaranteed a spot in the final four, so why exactly would he give it up? When Natalie first told Erik the "funny" part of the news she was about to tell him, he immediately declined, but once Natalie worked her magic, you could tell he was starting to think about it. The women convinced Erik that they would vote out Parvati when he gave up the necklace, when their plan was Amanda to be booted, but deep down inside, being the masterminds they are, the only plan on their minds were to vote out the naive Erik.

Tribal Council begins and everyone starts blabbing their gums, and Parvati opens her mouth too like she always does, but the real kicker is when the voting began and Jeff asked Erik if he wanted to give his immunity necklace up to anyone. After a few moments, he gave it up to Natalie, which got the entire jury going, as were the remaining women, and Erik knew it right away. (DUMB, DUMB, DUMB) As Jeff mentioned Erik's last words, Erik ran out of the tribal council area just about as fast as he ran in the immunity challenge. While there are probably some decent reasons to why he risked giving up the necklace, this definitely was not a smart reason, these four women are all manipulative, and we have seen that week after week. Didn't Erik learn anything? I mean, this seriously has been the season of the blindsides, no doubt about that.

Now what we have is an all women final four for Sunday night's finale, and it should definitely be a good one. I can see it now, all of the girls will be talking about how dumb Erik was, and blah, blah, blah, for probably the first half hour of the show. Anyhow, Survivor Micronesia turned out to be one of the greatest Survivors ever, I certainly was very entertained each week. Tune in next Sunday, May 11th for the finale, a review will follow it.